Comment by DrScientist
1 month ago
Interesting, but also absurd.
The Scottish independence movement is a very strong, grass roots campaign that has been building for many decades ( pre-web never mind pre-twitter ), with the Scottish ambivalence to the Union having deep cultural roots.
What keeps Gaza and the wider actions of the current Israel government in the news is the constant killings and injustices. If they didn't want to be in the news perhaps they could stop killing people.
Next you will be telling me Minnesota is only in the news due to Russia bots - and nothing to do with the killing of civilians on the streets.
No I am absolutely not saying that.
I am saying that there is evidence that the amount of media (and I am including X/Twitter and other social media) attention given to various causes around the world is actively manipulated. This is in response to a comment querying the perceived disparity in media coverage of events. Not that these events are or are not occurring or a more 'worthy' cause than one another.
I very much understand the history around Scottish independence, but unfortunately it will take me a lot of convincing to genuinely believe that twitter accounts in Iran sharing news that Balmoral castle has been taken over by protestors [1] are well meaning.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20260117184736/https://www.teleg...
You talk about distraction - and I would argue that the article you are linking to is a distraction.
If you don't believe Iranian tweets are a major factor in Scottish independence - then why mention it?
And while I agree there is a lot of media manipulation attempts out there - I'd argue, if you take your Iran/Israel issue as an example - do you truely believe that Iran is outgunning Israel in this regard??
In terms of coverage - did this incident gget much coverage? https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260125-israeli-forces-ki...
In the 848 days since Oct 2023, 1109 people have been killed within the occupied terrorities by Israeli government forces or settlers.
That's more than 1 a day. Are you arguing that has disproportionate coverage?
I'd argue it hardly gets a mention.